To praise with such a voice and in such measured terms as to show plainly secret disapproval.
“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.”
1
Pope: Epistle to Arbuthnot.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.